Le Samourai The perfect film? No. Unique, influential, and an-Emperor-without-clothes? Yes

John Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai is a film scholars' wet dream of a movie. It is stylish, accessible, well made, French and a product of American Noir influence and Japanese folklore. Because it’s a minimalist styled film wearing several influences on its sleeves there is much to consider, contemplate and write about.

This essay will not tell you too much about the film or spoil anything for those who have not seen it. You should see the film and form your own opinion about it. You can read this analysis without it tainting you or ruining the movie, but you’ll get even more out of this essay if you watch the movie first and than read what I have to say about the film.

Thousands of words have been written about this ‘masterpiece’ of modern cinema. Recent articles about it claim this movie has influenced everything from Dirty Harry to Taxi Driver to Pulp Fiction and beyond. It’s called a stylized poetic masterpiece.

The film however isn’t particularly graceful. Le Samourai is a French movie (in the best sense), and everyone should see it. Even if you hate subtitles, don’t worry, there are long passages in this movie where no dialogue is spoken at all. It borrows elements from several genre films, blends them masterfully together and the end product is an influential cat and mouse style crime thriller that features a lot of shots of the French Steve McQueen (only far prettier); Alain Delon walking a lot.

He walks down lots of hallways, on streets, up stairs, through nightclubs, into subway (metro) stations and more. You’ve probably never seen a movie where so much footage is devoted to someone walking—and you’ll most likely be engrossed in what is going on.

First, if you aren’t familiar with the movie, you’ll be trying to figure out what is going on. This starts right from the opening shot where you aren’t quite sure what you are seeing as the credits slowly pop onto the screen. Then we get a closer shot and realize we’re seeing a rather dilapidated apartment/hotel room, where Jef Costello (Delon) is smoking on his bed and a caged blue finch bird is tweeting away. (We don’t know the characters’ name for a while however).

He checks a stash of money--or rather half a stash of money, bills that have been cut in half and he has hidden inside the fireplace. Perhaps when he completes his task he gets the other half of the bills.

We watch as Jeff in stylish hat and white trench coat leaves his apartment and coolly slips into a Citroen motor car, taking out a large collection of at least 50 keys as he proceeds to try the keys in the car’s ignition. Ah he’s a car thief. He goes through 5 or 6 keys before one works and he pulls away from the curb, and drives down the street. Eventually he pulls into a garage, has the plates changed on the car and then drives out again. He goes to a woman’s apartment (played by his real life wife Nathalie Delon) and quickly explains that she is to tell anyone that asks that he has been with her for several hours. He is setting up an alibi. For what?

He then goes to a poker game and after a few moments, tells the players that he will be back at 2:00 a.m. He also makes the proclamation that he never loses. Next he enters a chic nightclub, pulling up his white trenchcoat collar and pulling down his hat so that most people do not get a good look at his face. There’s a jazz group at the nightclub with a striking black female piano player (played by former model Caty Rosier) front and center.

We know this man is up to something. We suspect it is probably murder, but what else might be going on, we do not know. We simply watch what is going on and decide that this very good looking, seemingly cautious and thorough young man is interesting to watch. We decide without any good reason to make a decision, that we like him. We are rooting for him to finish whatever it is he is doing. We want to continue watching him so we want him to stay safe.

It’s interesting to think about. We know absolutely nothing about this man, except he has a nice style, and is doing illegal things. I don’t want to ruin the movie by telling you too much about it. You already know from the title of the film that Costello (Delon) must be a hit man. What you don’t know is that film will become a cat and mouse type suspense thriller between a French inspector (François Périer) and his prime suspect who seems to have a perfect alibi; Jef Costello. It puts both men in compromised positions. They have both performed their duties with flaws and imperfections. Both of them have ethics and strong senses of honor, but only one lives by a strict uncompromising code.

Mellville makes movies that do not explain everything to an audience. He wants the audience to leave his movie thinking about what they just saw means. He doesn’t like to tell everything, not even at the end of the movie to wrap things up.

You have everything you need in Le Samourai to know what the movie is about and you can interpret it a few different ways. I am amused how many film scholars fall all over themselves when it comes to this movie. They write thousands of words of how this movie creates a new kind of crime thriller, more successful than Breathless, and an inspiration for all the anti-hero kind of movies that would come just a few years later.

You can write about the fact that the character of Jef is not actually a true Samurai, since he is a ‘lone wolf’ without a master, not Japanese either of course.

But Le Samourai isn’t a brand new concept of a film—it simply has a definite sense of style and it is directed with a sense of focused confidence—we rarely see in movies. It takes its time showing you what a character is doing and you have to guess where it is going and what will happen next. In the end you might very well throw up your hands and go… ‘that’s it? This is the movie that so many people talk about as near perfect and that’s all there is to it?”

Hopefully you’ll think a little bit about what you have just seen and know enough about the movies and when this was made to appreciate how Mellville created what appears to be a very laid back natural film noir (in color but full of shadows, and atmosphere) with lots of very detailed style. The typical femme fatale character is shown differently here. The use of sound, the way he uses his camera, the long shots of his character walking, the details of what he does—all quite innovative. That’s not to say any of it was brand new—it wasn’t. It’s simply that Melville put it together better than anyone else had done.

So what does it mean? It means with the proper pace, the proper style, the right casting, you can captivate an audience for about 100 minutes and make it look very easy. The brilliance of this film is in its deceptive simplicity. It’s a movie that has been stripped of fat, creating simple archetypes free from their direct influences (the gangster film, the samurai movie, the cat and mouse police procedural, the film noir). It creates a myth from a blank slate.

We know nothing about Jef Costello in the beginning of the movie and barely know much more at the end of the film. We know he is careful—but not perfect—and has a strong code of honor. We see a flash here and there that he needs and desires tenderness from a woman—but is it part of his business to make the woman think this—or is it really part of him? We don’t know. We decide for ourselves who this man is or isn’t. We decide what his actions at the end of the movie mean.

It’s simply ridiculous to suggest that this movie directly influenced Coogan’s Bluff (the influence for Dirty Harry) or Pulp Fiction (or Reservoir Dogs) or Taxi Driver. There are other films made at almost the same time like John Boorman’s 1967 Point Blank, Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill (1967) , Peter Yates’ 1968 Bullitt, not to mention Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967) that are every bit as innovative and stylish and influential as this 1967 film is. And that is without mentioning all of the Japanese films that blended the Western myths and Samurai folklore into memorable movies by not just Kurosowa but by so many others. What’s slightly different is that we have to make the editorial decision about how we feel. In most other films, the decision is made for us and very clearly. In this one, it isn’t really made for us at all.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that you not put Le Samourai up on a pedestal, but do so because it is a brilliant balancing act of shadows and fog that pretends to give us much more than it actually delivers. It’s brilliance is that without character background, we are fascinated and root for a cipher—a person we know nothing about, but because of his placement in a tableaux (a play) we are mesmerized by him and decide to like him for his sense of honor—even if he is cold blooded murderer.

We aren’t given enough information to determine if the man murdered was someone that deserved his fate. We might assume such a thing—but we don’t have any real basis of fact for the assumption and if we decide because of the reactions of others, the victim was not a good person—we should look again at why we jump to this conclusion. The impression we might have gotten comes from someone that we later see might have double-crossed someone else.

Or are we assuming more than we are actually shown?

This is why this film is brilliant. Its minimalism – the way in which it tells the story, shows us bits and pieces of information but not actually enough. We aren’t sure if a double cross has taken place or not. We have decided certain facts and idea based on what we see—which if you think about it, isn’t very much at all. A trick has been played on us. Laugh at yourself for falling for it. Realize you have been duped by a true master.

Le Samourai is unique and masterful. Perhaps it is not original enough to be called a true masterpiece—but then you can decide it is everything and more if you like.

I will hopefully join ifif1938 400th review French Find write-off with this review. (( too just past my 400th review !!!) Details here: http://www.epinions.com/content_229814210180


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV